Chapter Text
It was a hot summer day in Eagle Rock, New Mexico. The sun was shining, and a few clouds dotted the blue sky. 45 minutes away from the town of Teufort, in a barn overlooking a small lake, The RED Mercs were gathered in the center of the barn, sitting at a large rectangular table, getting ready for a meeting.
Scout, Soldier, Pyro, Demoman, Heavy, Sniper, and Spy were anticipating the job that they are gonna do, as this would be important to the town's success in solving the problem.
"Alright, Gentlemen!" Spy explained to his fellow Mercs. "Today, we are here on this mushroom farm, because Engineer and Medic have worked together on creating a special serum to grow bigger mushrooms for this farm." Spy explained to his colleagues. "As all of you can see." Spy pointed with a ruler to a chalkboard with sketched details of what they're all going to do.
"The Administrator has briefed us on how this farm hasn't grown much food for the community since these mushrooms have gotten scarce due to poor growth decisions, among a couple more problems that we have to deal with!"
"Uhhh... Question!" Scout exclaimed. "Sigh... Yes Scout?" Spy groaned. "I don't know what dis stuff is made of, but I agree with Soldier and Demo that dis so-called "Serum" dat Engie and Medic cooked up looks kinda questionable don't ya think Soldier?" "Affirmative!" Soldier agreed, "Yeah!" Demoman followed.
"It's NOT questionable you idiots!" Spy said. "They have worked on it, and perfected it for six months so that it won't cause another problem to this mushroom farm!"
"I could add something else to this discussion!" Sniper said. "If this farm is failing because it can only grow mushrooms, then why shouldn't they grow different foods?" "Da!, maybe the Owner of farm could do that!, then he would get farm out of money troubles!" Heavy added. "Well because, If all of you think this "Farmer" in question would grow different fruits and vegetables, then I should let you know that this isn't possible!" Answered Spy.
"He only makes profits growing mushrooms, because mushrooms are in high demand for the community of this town!, now will all of you shut up?, because Engineer and Medic are coming right now with their serum!" The Mercs turned towards the door, and Engineer and Medic came through with Medic holding the serum.
"Howdy folks!" Greeted Engineer. "Ah reckon y'all heard what we've been whippin' up in the laboratory back at 2Fort!" "Indeed, we have!" Spy said, his colleagues nodding in agreement. "Well, now Y'all gonna know what this here serum can do!" "Zat's true my hard-hatted friend!" Medic chirped. "Our serum has got ze power zese mushrooms need to grow big und strong!, It contains ze right chemicals, for bigger, better tasting mushrooms, and ze best part, is that zis farm will become the leading brand for all of the mushrooms in New Mexico if we zis serum is successful!" "Yeah!" Engineer agreed. All that we have to do is plant all of these mushroom acres, then add the serum into the soil, and then, the rest is history!"
"So, who's with Engineer and Medic?" Spy questioned the other Mercs. After a beat, they all agreed. "Very Good!" Spy exclaimed with determination. "Let's get to work!" And without a moment's hesitation, everyone was out in the fields, planting the mushrooms in every humid place that they can access.
But it was hard work putting the spores in the lines of soil made for the mushrooms, especially when the hot sun was bearing down on them. "Ugghh!, Can we take a break in da shade?" Scout groaned to Spy. "I'm sweatin' like crazy over here!" "No." Spy answered. "We are about to add the serum to the planted spots, and you must help with that." "Oh, fine! I'll do it!" Replied an exhausted Scout as he went over to the barn where Engineer and Medic were, grabbed a container full of the serum, and poured it into a machine that Engineer made that will add it to the soil.
Engineer and Medic were preparing to start up the machine to the fields occupied by the mushroom spores they planted. "Great job, Scout!" Engineer said as he pressed a few buttons on the machine, making sure it was going to work properly. "Now all that we need to do is press that big red button, and y'all need to watch over my machine, as some patches of soil could be hard enough to cause problems."
"Yeah yeah, I get it." Scout said as he removed the now empty container from the machine. "Let's just add da serum already!" Engineer nodded as he saw that the serum meter was full, enough to grow all the mushrooms they need. "Alright Engineer, are you ready?" asked Medic. "I'm ready!" replied the Engineer. "Alright, let's pour the serum into the ground!" Medic said. And together, they pressed the button on the machine, starting it up with a loud whirr, as it went out into the field, and started to dispense the serum into the soil. flowed through the soil, and into the mushrooms thus, triggering the serum's purpose of growing the mushrooms, and making them more edible to the community of Eagle Rock.
When the last drop of the serum was in, Everyone looked at their hard work and smiled. "Well, I reckon that's that!" Engineer said with content, knowing that they will curb the citizens' starvation in no time. "Yep... I think so!" Agreed Spy.
The RED Mercs went back into the barn to get some rest, as the sun was setting after hours of work. "Finally!" Scout sighed. "About time we got some rest around here!" "Agreed!" Nodded Demoman, as he went back into the barn to get some well earned sleep.
Scout also went with him and the other Mercs, but as he started to head back, he saw something strange in the corner of his eye. "Huh? What's dat?" Scout said in curiosity, as he turned around, and saw a big mushroom that was growing rather quickly. Not only that, but there was something rather off about it. It looked like it was pulsing in a few places like a defected heart, and it had an eerie cyan color to it that was steadily taking over the original coloration of the mushroom before it was fed the serum.
"Ehh...dat's just the serum doin' it's job I guess... I don't know..." Scout muttered as he ignored that weird mushroom, not even noticing the fact that it's steadily starting to glow and grow. While the RED Mercs were getting ready for bed, all of the mushrooms started to get the same weird coloring, and kept growing, and growing, and growing.
Then at midnight, while everyone was asleep, an earthquake occurred, shaking the whole barn, and damaging some of its architecture. "Wha?! What's happening!" Scout woke with a start followed instantly by everyone else. The Spy opened the door to Scout's room instantly, and took him with him to the underground shelter. "Hurry Scout! We need to get to the underground shelter immediately!"
Spy shouted. The RED Mercs hurried underground to avoid getting caught in the quake that was rattling the farm. A few moments later, when everyone was in, the earthquake stopped, but The Mercs were all trapped inside the shelter.
"Is everyone alright?" Spy called to his co-mercenaries. "Ja! A few of us got some minor bruises und cuts, but nevertheless, we're all safe here!" Medic assured. "Ok, why is wall wet?" Heavy asked, "What? What do you mean?" Spy said. The walls all around the underground shelter were really damp, and some root like tendrils started to tunnel their way into the makeshift bunker.
"Alert! Plant Tendrils!" Soldier warned his teammates. The Mercs saw the walls and the ceiling collapse around them, with huge plant tendrils pulsating through the soil. "Engineer!, Medic! What have the both of you done?!" Spy growled, knowing that the both of them caused another problem with the serum, rather than helping out with the mushroom gardening.
"Uhhhhhh...... Engie? Did you add somezing extra in ze serum?" Questioned Medic, looking worried. "Well uhh... I did add one extra ingredient, It was a modified form of Mycelium" Engineer answered.
"I used it in making the serum, because according to my calculations, this helps it grow more mushrooms out of a single "Parent Mushroom", It must've been a slight miscalculation I made based on the making of this Ingredient I guess."
Spy got mad at the Engineer when he heard his Explanation. "ENGINEER!" Spy yelled at Engineer, who gasped in shock at his anger. "Your miscalculation was the cause of all of this?! Don't you know how much trouble we are in right now?! Thanks to you, The ENTIRE FARM may have been lost! We need to move now!" Engineer frowned and said to Spy, "Ah'm sorry! I thought I had it all written down!"
Spy groaned and replied, "It doesn't matter right now! We need to get out of here!" Spy gestured at his team to follow him out of the farm through an exit route that the farmer who was the original owner of this farm dug out just in case things went totally wrong like what is happening outside right now. They went through the straight tunnel to freedom when suddenly, big tendrils shot out from the floor, blocking their path.
"AAHH! This isn't happening!" Scout screamed, his face filled with fear. "Don't worry lads! I got this." Sniper said to his friends, as both he, and Pyro got out their kukri and axe respectively, and began to slash and chop at the tendrils, cutting them into pieces, and clearing the way.
More tendrils shot out of the ground, and even through the walls and ceiling, but Sniper and Pyro kept cutting them down, until the team neared the end of the tunnel. "Almost there everyone!" Heavy shouted to his team.
"Phew! Looks like we are gettin' out of here in one piece!" Scout said in relief, when there was a sudden rumbling that stopped them in their tracks, and thick tendrils came out of all sides of the exit. "NO!! SO CLOSE!!!" Scout Shrieked in horror.
"WHAT?! NO!! This cannot be! Not now!!" Spy Shouted in frustration. Pyro mumbled to everyone that he was determined to get all of his friends out. But as he swung his axe at the tendrils, it cut them, but didn't slice them in half. The axe was lodged in one of the tendrils, and Pyro struggled to pull it loose.
Same thing went to Sniper's kukri, when he tried to help Pyro by cutting the tendrils apart. "Gah! My knife!" Sniper exclaimed as he tried to dislodge his weapon from the tendril. "The tendrils are too resilient!" Spy shouted as he tried to figure another way out of this situation.
"WE'RE TRAPPED!!" Screamed a panicked Scout. "No we're not, Lads, We're all gettin' outta here!" Demoman said as he aimed his Stickybomb Launcher at the caved-in entrance in front of him and his fellow Mercs, and shot a few Stickybombs at the tendrils, detonating them with the press of a button on his weapon, thus blasting them apart with an explosion, and opening the entrance back up, allowing the RED Mercs to escape.
"The entrance is clear, Everyone Move!" Spy commanded his team, and they all rushed out of the underground shelter, only to be met with the biggest, monstrous, and most mutated mushroom they all have ever come across. The thing was huge, even bigger than the barn, which was mostly destroyed when it grew to its massive size.
This was the result the serum had on the mushrooms, they all have been mutated beyond normality, and transformed into this live, giant beast of a mushroom. Spy stared in awe upon seeing the plant, knowing that they're going to be in a massive heap of trouble with the People of Eagle Rock now.
""We must remove Giant Mushroom!" Heavy bellowed to his team, revving up his Minigun, ready to fight the mutant plant. The other Mercenaries followed suit and started to shoot their weapons at the mutated fungus. But as they got closer, the ground erupted all of a sudden, as more mushrooms grew out of the ground at an alarming rate. The ground was also falling away into a massive pit with water at the bottom. The RED Mercs stumbled as the very ground beneath them shook and crumbled away, making most of them fall into the pit, only for a huge mushroom cap to catch them, and shoot upward with them.
"Whoa! Watch out!!" Engineer called to his team, as these huge mushrooms shot out from the ground and replaced the soil. Every Merc was caught completely off guard by the collapsing ground, as well as those huge mushrooms. Heavy got on one of the mushrooms, but he bounced off of it into another one. "Big mushrooms are bouncy!" Heavy hollered, as he struggled to keep his balance. "Well don't just stand there people, shoot the mushroom until it no longer moves, and let's get out of here!" Spy exclaimed to his team as they all began to bounce, hop, and jump away from the growing mutant mushroom, as if they were Wonderland creatures hurrying away from an explosion that would poof them out of existence, as if it was only just the dream Alice's mind would conjure up in her sleep.
"It's gonna blow! Hurry everyone!!" hollered Demoman as the team dashed towards sturdy ground. The mushroom began to swell uncontrollably growing bigger, and bigger until, *KABOOOOOOOM!!!* the mutant mushroom blew up, and scattered mushrooms everywhere. Thankfully, the RED Mercs escaped the blast, and were perfectly fine. Mushrooms quickly rained down on the team while they scurried to another roofed shelter for safety purposes.
"Well that was a disaster!" Spy growled "I cannot believe the both of you messed up our goals Engineer, Medic! How will the people get their mushrooms now?!" He was about to reprimand the both of them, until a mushroom fell into Spy's hands. "Moi?" The mushroom was about the size of Heavy's fists, and it looked completely normal, no icky looking parts, no odd funky smell, nothing, although it is bigger than the normal mushrooms in the former mushroom farm. Spy hesitated a bit, but then, he took a bite out of it, and swallowed. "Hm, mmm... Mmmmmm, Oh yes!, not bad at all!" Spy mused as he took another bite. "Oh, vhat's zis now?" Medic piped. You're eating zat mushroom? How did it taste?"
"Medic, Engineer, these mushrooms are excellent, and it's raining mushrooms right now, I think your serum has solved Eagle Rock's mushroom problem!" Both Engineer and Medic's faces beamed when they heard Spy. "Ve did it my Hard-Hatted Friend!, we solved ze people's starvation issues!" Medic joyfully said as he took out his clipboard and wrote down some notes about the discovery of the newly created mushroom spring.
But then, a mob of people came to the team responsible for waking them up late at night, and saw their handiwork in all of its accidentally bountiful glory, in fact, some of the people caught some of the mushrooms raining down from the sky, and ate them. They then cheered for the RED Mercs as their problem was finally solved, The Mayor of Eagle Rock was even there, having one of the mushrooms in his hand.
"My goodness gracious! What do we have here? A group of nine Mercenaries actually caused the farm to literally blow into a bountiful harvest?" "Uhhh... Yes! We did that!" Spy answered. "RED, that serum of yours was an Extraordinary Success! Well Done!" Spy just knew that Engineer and Medic did more than just solve the problem, but they created a near-infinite supply of mushrooms to feed the entirety of Eagle Rock , and even its surrounding smaller towns.
The giant mushroom, which became a shrine spewing out a constant stream of mushrooms, became a tourist attraction within a day and a half. The citizens of Eagle Rock never went hungry ever since thanks to that, and The Administrator got notified about what happened at the farm. She gave the team a healthy amount of credits, and a big paycheck that was bigger than their normal paychecks. After all, The team would know that whenever something goes wrong at first, they should hope for a silver lining. And that was exactly what happened on that day.
THE END